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AN- 



ADDRESS 



CHARACTER OF THE COLONY 



FOUNDED BY 



aEORGE POT^HA^IVI, 



MOUTH OF THE KENNEBEC RIVER AUGUST 19th, [0. S.] 1G07. 

DELIVERED IN B^A^TH, 

ON TIIK TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY 
OF THAT EVENT. 



/ 



BY HON. EDWARD E. BOURNE, ^^-^--t- 



OF KENNEBUMK. 




Delivered and Puhlished at the request of tlie Committee on the Commemoration. 



PORTLAND: 

PRINTED BY BROWN THURSTON, 

\i K 1864. 



Fx-- 



At a meeting of tlie Executive Committee on the Popham Celebra- 
tion, held at Bath, August 29th, 1864, after the proceedings of the 
the Two Hundred and fifty-seventh Annivereary of the Settlement of 
the First En^rlish Colony on the shores of New England, on motion of 
Hon. Charles J. Gilman, it was 

Resolved. That the thanks of the Executive Committee be presented 
to the Hon. Edward E. Bourne, for his able and instructive Address, 
delivered on this occasion, and that he be solicited to furnish a copy 
thereof for publication. 

EDWARD BALLARD, Secretary of the Ex. Com. 

Brcxswick, Oct. 18, 1864. 



ADDRESS. 



The commemoration at Fort Popliam in 1862 has called 
forth from the public press some severe criticisms on the 
moral character of the Sagadahock colonists of 1607. These 
strictures, it is believed by the committee of arrangements 
for this celebration, have no foundation in history ; and I 
have been requested to devote this hour to their examina- 
tion. It is strange that an occasion so full of historic 
mementoes, and which awakened the sympathies of so large 
a concourse of worthy and intelligent men, should have 
been seized upon for the purpose of calumniating that little 
band. Tliey had abandoned all the genial associations of 
home life, exposed themselves to hazards, over the wide 
ocean, of which but few of them had any experience, for 
the acknowledged noble purpose of enlarging the area of 
civilization, planting the Christian religion, and opening tlio 
way for a more extensive commerce, with little to cheer 
them but the hope of success, and a confidence in the 
watchful care of a beneficent Providence. And it is stranger 
still, when it is remembered that the commemoration was in 



6 

unison with the consecration which years had been bestow- 
ing and fastening on the spot, which the colonists had chosen 
as the base of their honorable enterprise. Drake, than 
whom there is not a more indefatigable searcher into the 
arcana of the past, and thence no one more truly versed in 
the facts of our early history, in speaking of the Sagada- 
hock says, " It is celebrated as the place where the first settle- 
ment was made in New England." If celebrated hitherto, 
why complain that the impulses of a Christian people, rev- 
erencing the fortitude, energy, and self-sacrificing spirit of 
those whose temporary abode there had imparted to the spot 
a lasting interest, had led them to respond to what the 
annals of time had already declared, and to come together 
to honor those noble spirits who had imparted to it its hal- 
lowed memories V If celebrated for centuries, why now 
attempt to divest it of its attractions ? 

But thougli the criticism, to which the commemoration 
lias been subjected, may have been unwarranted, and the 
ignominy which it has attempted to fasten on the characters 
of the first settlers on our shores, entirely unauthorized, I 
do not draw from it any incentives to uncharitable retort. 
History is only valuable as it is true. No man, therefore, 
can regard it unimportant that alleged facts should be dili- 
gently canvassed, that the fidelity of the record may be 
determined. Every historical student must appreciate the 
wisdom and necessity of a vigilant providence, that false- 
hood shall not be permitted to come in and usurp the place 



of what is real and substantial. So that though I may 
regard the animadversions of the writer, who has endeav- 
ored, through much laborious study, to impeach the moral 
status of the colony at Sagadahock, as unsustained by the 
historical evidence whicli he has adduced, I can still enter- 
ain for him the respect to which he is entitled, from 
his faithful and persevering exertions to bring to light the 
facts of history, over which the dust of ages was fast gath- 
ering. The labors of such men seldom meet with pecu- 
niary remuneration. They are public beneficiaries in the 
best sense. We have some of this class among our own 
citizens, whose claims have never yet been fully appreciated. 
Willis and Sewall and Poor, with others, have laid us 
under an abiding indebtraent. 

Sympathizing then as I do, with the devoted laborers in 
historical research, I proceed to examine in a kindly spirit, 
the objections which have been raised to these anniversary 
proceedings. There is no reason for doubt as to the location 
of the Popham Colony. The site of the fort now building, 
is identical with the Indian Sabino. The objections to the 
celebration are based on the alleged entire failure of the 
enterprise, and the moral character of tlie immediate agents 
in it. The colony is said to have been composed of men, in 
the home country, " endangered by law ;" and being thus 
constituted, it had no life in itself, and thence soon ended, 
without fulfilling any profitable purpose. 

Much light on the subject before us has been given by the 
publication of the Memorial Volume. This work is a val- 



liable contribution to the historic literature of tlie State. 
The leading articles, with the notes appended, cannot fail to 
bring- material aid to those who would acquaint themselves 
with its early colonization. Tiie many authorities cited, 
in my opinion, establish the positions which the author of 
the address assumes. My first impressions from reading 
the animadversions of a part of the press and of some his- 
torical men, immediately following the first gathering at 
FortPopham, were, that our commemoration was not based 
on a very desirable foundation. But this new volume dis- 
pelled all misgivings in that direction. By a thorough 
examination of its references, and various works relating to 
the first settlement of New P]ngland, I am well satisfied 
with the judgment that there was no error in our proceed- 
ings. 

No expedition or enterprise derives its character from the 
sub-agents, to whom is intrusted the physical labor of its 
accomplishment. Persons are employed in thousands of 
great operations, who impart no character to the work. 
The discovery of this western continent by Columbus, and 
the establishment of the Plymouth colony, would lose none 
of their greatness, value, or importance, from the mutinous 
or contentious spirit, which may have been manifested on 
board the ships, on which they were wafted to these shores. 
In the grand army of the United States, leaving their homes 
and jeopardizing their lives to subdue a rebellion, involving 
all the interests of freedom, morality, and religion, while the 



9 

souls of a vast portion of them are moved by the impulses of 
a noble and exalted patriotism, there are undoubtedly many 
in whose breasts burns no true love of country, who have been 
endangered by the law, and even received its merited judg- 
ments. But while a patriotic soldiery is infinitely better 
than one steeped in treason and crime, the enterprise in 
which all are engaged is not shorn of its grandeur b}^ this 
commingling of patriotism and vice in the great work of 
saving a government consecrated in the hearts of all the 
true and the good. 

I propose to review the two principal objections which 
have been suggested, having carefully examined the authori- 
ties on which they are based, as well as what relevant 
liistory was at hand. I think the preponderance of evidence 
sustains the position, that this attempt at colonization, if 
objectors choose so to term it, was one of the agencies of 
American civilization. That, in some considerable measure, 
it initiated those transformations l)y which the savage wilder- 
ness has been converted into a land of commercial enter- 
prise, of literature, and religion ; that its results have 
ministered to all subsequent movements tending to the de- 
velopment of humanity on these western shores. 

The precise motives which animated its projectors do 
not appear to be material in adjudicating on the matter. 
Wiiether instigated by religion, fame, or money, the same 
consequences may flow from a succession of acts. And 
here it is not inappropriate ta. remark, that there has not 



10 

seemed to me to be any occasion for collision or excitement, 
on the part of those who have Ijecn wont to reverence the 
memory of the brave men wlio landed at Plymouth in 1620. 
It is only claimed for the Sagadaliock colony, that it was the 
first attempt at colonization ; that it secured this territory 
to King James, and began the settlement of New England — 
while, as I understand the facts, the emigrants at Plymouth 
did not leave the father-land for any such objects. The 
Puritans had in view only the free enjoyment of their 
religion. Colonization was not one of the impelling mo- 
tives, but only an incident or necessary result. No reasona- 
ble man can claim for them any such purpose. The same 
motives which induced tiieir first departure from England 
for Holland, led them over the waters. They did not, of 
course, go to colonize Amsterdam or Leyden. That work 
had been effectually done, long before their emigration was 
contemplated. And I may/urthcr add, that it was never in 
their hearts to colonize New England. It was only by Divine 
intervention, or the hand of man, that they were compelled 
to do so. They intended to go to Hudson River, or South 
Virginia, but, against their will, were landed at Plymouth. 
In common parlance, therefore, this landing was accidental 
and originated no claim, on their part, to the grateful 
remembrance of subsequent generations. 

If it is said, that the motives of the Puritans in leaving the 
home of all their sympathies, were more noble and grand, 
than those of the .Sagadahock colonists ; I have no disposition 
to controvert that assertion. Humanity was nevei-, in the 



11 

history of the world, more highly exalted than in the per- 
sons of those, who, from the impulses of a pure Christian 
conscientiousness, submitted cheerfully to the sacrifices 
which were inevitably to follow the disruption of all the 
genial, happy associations of life, and to the deprivations 
and hardships of the land to which they were to be wafted. 

But our business now is with the colonization of New 
England, and not with the moral attributes of the settlers, 
excepting so far as is necessary to rebut the charge, that the 
Sagadahock enterprise was an entire failure ; and that this 
failure was the necessary result of the obliquity of all en- 
gaged in it. We do not claim for these adventurers or their 
employers, any extraordinary moral excellence. We believe 
that they were fair representatives of the human family. 

And who vv^ere the projectors of this colony ? And who were 
Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and Sir John Popham ? Were they 
men who would be likely to select a company of outlaws, 
vagabonds, idlers, or indifferent hirelings, to carry forward an 
enterprise in whicli their personal interests were so deeply 
involved, and which required so much foresight, discretion, 
energy, and resolution ? In tlie history of the follies of 
humanity, is tiiere to be found such fatal obtuseness, in 
the action of an intelligent manhood, as that one should 
deliberately minister to tlie frustration of a noble object, on 
which his heart was firmly fixed ? All accounts which have 
come down to us of the character of Gorges exclude the 
idea of any such incongruity in his conceptions or acts. A 



12 

proposition to carry out his purposes by such a suicidal 
initiation of tlio grand niovemont of colonization, could not 
for an instant have taken hold of iiis sympathies, and secured 
his a[)probation. All the writers of the age in which he 
lived, accord to them not only an enterprising but a discreet 
and considerate spirit. And how could they hesitate to do 
so ? The patronage of the king and his council, and o^ 
others of moral, civil, and political eminence, precluded all 
cavil and all adverse judgment in that regard. From his 
active, vigorous, and executive ability, he was called to fill 
various im])ortant offices; first, in the navy ; then as gov- 
ernor of the fort and island of Plymouth ; then as a leading 
member of the Plymouth Company for the colonization of 
the new world ; tiien as treasurer and governor of the 
Council of Trade ; and when one was wanted to harmonize 
the conflicting interests of New England, and to work a 
reformation of the evils wliich had grown out of them, as 
well i;.,s to subserve the predominant objects of religion and 
civil government, he was selected b}^ the king and his advi- 
sers as one distinguished for his fidelity, circumspection, and 
administrative knowledge, and meet and able for that em- 
ployment, and was commissionod as Governor of New Eng- 
land. And to this, Thornton, in his " Landing at Ca|)e 
Ann," adds liis high commendation in the remark, that "no 
adverse results disheartened him, but he persevered in col- 
lecting all possible information bearing on the great work 
before liim; and that next to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Gorges 
stands t)ut the most conspicuous in the History of Northern 



13 

Colonization." And in another place, " we proudly claim 
him as the founder of Maine." 

This well established character lias met with no impeach- 
ment in the literature of all subsequent years. To this 
brief sketcli of Gorges, I may well add the fact stated by 
himself, that he never took a step in any matter of magni- 
tude, without consultation with the Earl of Southampton. 

And who was Sir John Fopham ? An eminent Ciiief 
Justice of the Court of King's Bench in England ; an ele- 
vation demanding moral and intellectual endowments, to 
which few can lay claim. Notwithstanding any unfavorable 
manifestations whicli may be found in his younger days, at 
the period of wliich we are now speaking, he had abjured 
all the wayward propensities of his early manhood. One of 
his personal attributes during his judicial life, was an ab- 
horrence of crime. Perhaps this element of his character 
was generated by his own previous experience. Let it be so. 
This fact in no degree detracts from the moral substratum 
on which his elevation to the bench was based. He would 
not have been appointed to an ofiice, in the administration of 
which the well being of the inhabitants of the kingdom was 
so deeply involved, without plenary evidence of a radical 
change of character. Such changes are by no means un- 
common in the history of the race. His commission recog- 
nized him as trusty, well beloved, and faithful ; and what- 
ever charges the most diligent and persevering research now 
may suggest against his moral, social, or intellectual charac- 



14 

ter, in my view, they are fully answered by the cotemporary 
records, which I hold to be of more value than the mere 
opinion of irresponsible writers at any sul)sequent period. 
Croke's Reports in England, are of the highest authority with 
the profession. Lord Coke directed the particular attention 
of students to them. These reports embrace the adjudica- 
tions of Popham ; and at the close of his judicial career by 
death, the reporter says : " Upon Wednesday, the tenth day 
of June, (5th James) this term, Sir John Popham, Chief 
Justice of the King's Bench, departed this life, being a most 
reverend judge, and a person of great learning and integ- 
rity." This official enunciation covers the whole ground. 
If Holt and Hyde regarded his reports of no authority. Coke 
was of a different opinion. So was also Croke. 

But his judicial standing is not very material to our pur- 
pose. His learning and integrity are consecrated by the 
record ; and all contemporaneous authority recognized liim 
as one morally and intellectually ranking with tlie highest 
of the age. Strachey denominates him " the upright and 
noble gentleman." Capt. John Smith calls him " that 
most memorable judge" — " that honorable patron of virtue." 
Hubbard also, in his History of New England, speaks of 
him as one of great authority and influence ; as the noble 
patron of justice and virtue ; as a noble patriot. Increase 
Mather calls him " the noble lord ;" Palfrey, " that emi- 
nent person." The same exalted character is substantially 
awarded him by the Company in England, in the record 
that " it pleased God to take from us this worthy member, 



15 

the Lord Chief Justiee ;" and further that his death came 
over them with such a withering influence as to paralyze 
their hands for further exertions. Purchas also says, "the 
death of the Lord Chief Justice did so astonish the hearts 
of the most part of the adventurers, as some grew cold, and 
some did wholly abandon the business." 

Li an interesting article on Ancient Pemaquid, as pub- 
lished in our Historical Collections, the author clearly enun- 
ciates his concurrent opinion as to his high standing. Li 
speaking of Sabino he says, " The President of this enter- 
prise, Popliam, died there ; and thus New England counts 
among the earliest, if not the very first of her 'illustrious 
dead,' the worthy brother of the Lord Chief Justice of 
England." As much as to say, worthy and illustrious 
because of his relationship to Chief Justice Popham. This 
is the only foundation on which he here bases these attri- 
butes of his character. 80 also does the same author award 
to him equally honorable meed in his citation from the Journal 
of Parliament. It is wonderful how readily even the most 
honest and diligent searchers after truth, by the inspirations 
of a special object, may be diverted from a candid and fair 
examination and judgment of historical facts. Blackstone 
says, " the enacting of penalties ought to be calmly and 
maturely considered, by persons who know what provis- 
ions the laws have already made to remedy the mischiefs 
complained of; who can, from experience, foresee the proba- 
ble consequences of those which are now proposed, and who 
will judge without passion or prejudice, how adequate tiiey 



16 

are for the evil. Such has been a common mode in this 
country and Europe, of ameliorating and revising the crim- 
inal code. Professional men of learning and experience, 
not influenced by passion or prejudice, have been called to 
this important work. Popliam was appointed for this high 
and honorable office from his experience and well recognized 
understanding of the relation between crime and punish- 
ment, and the adaptation of the one for the prevention of 
the other. That, we know, is the object of all criminal law. 
He reported his bill for that purpose, in which provision was 
made that the criminal might be exiled from his country, in 
commutation for the severer punishment prescribed ; thereby 
substituting expatriation for the penalty of death ; inau- 
gurating, as we think, a great and benevolent change in 
criminal jurisprudence, for which he should be remembered 
and honored by every friend of the race. And yet this 
passage in his biography is introduced as an impeachment of 
the moral, social, and judicial standing of this noble and 
upright judge. 

It will be understood also, that this was long before Pop- 
ham was induced to come into the colonization enterprise at 
Sagadahock, which was in 1597 ; and that it could have no 
bearing on his future action or interests in that undertaking ; 
because it was only when the project was started, ten years 
after, that on account of his great influence, he was per- 
suaded to engage in it. And beyond this, the act introduced 
and charged to have ])een devised by him, as auxiliary to his 
personal interests in carrying out the Sagadahock enter- 



17 

prise, was to expire by its own limitation, with the first ses- 
sion of the next Parliament, which ended in 1601. 

Such was Sir John Popham, as is said by Folsom, in the 
first volume of the historical collections, " one of the most 
upright and able judges that ever sat upon the English 
Bench," and at tlie time of the origination of the Sagada- 
liock colony, " in the zenith of his power and influence, 
venerable for his age ; respected for his wise administration, 
and strong in the confidence of the crown." His memory 
is truly consecrated by one of the most magnificent monu- 
ments ever erected over the remains of departed worth. 

And now let me ask, what man in his senses will believe, 
that for the execution of this grand project of planting civ- 
ilization and religion in this new world, a work involving so 
deeply their individual pecuniary interests, these men would 
have sent forth a company of rogues, vagabonds, and others 
" endangered by the law ?" Who can believe, that the Lord 
Chief Justice of England, standing at the head of the judi- 
ciary of the realm, could have so ill judged of the proper 
instrumentalities for effecting a design of such immense 
magnitude, as to have committed its high destiny to the 
management of a set of men having no sympathy for the 
objects in view, which had taken such strong hold of his 
own heart ? 

But it is urged that Gorges says he obtained his men with 
difficulty. To me it is manifest that he referred to his sub- 
sequent enterprises, and meant suitable men. In giving his 
2 



la 

account of his preparations for tlio first colony, he suggests 
no such difficulty. There never was a time yet, when the 
jails or prisons of England, if accessible for the purpose, 
would not have afforded men enough for a dozen such 
plantations. And these criminals would very readily have 
exchanged imprisonment for a voyage across the ocean. It 
would be by no means a sure conclusion, had the emigrants 
been of the character alleged, that they could not have built 
up a respectal)le community. The exiles of Siberia have 
raised up villas creditable to the civilization of any nation. 
" In elegance and solidity of construction," says a late wri- 
ter, " these colonies may be compared to the finest villages 
of Western Europe. Banishment in the place where it is 
undergone ceases to be considered a disgrace ; and he who is 
not deeply depraved, can only see in it a step to social hap- 
piness." But we have no occasion to resort to any hypoth- 
esis of this kind. History furnislies no foundation for the 
scandal, that the criminal law of England furnished the 
active agents for this company. The evidence is very clear 
that no such elements entered into its composition. 

To what extent the colony was infected with crime, is not 
alleged. That there should be some of this adventurous 
band whose previous lives had not accorded with the prin- 
ciples of a sound '"morality, may very reasonably be sup- 
posed. It would be presumptuous in any one to hazard a 
different opinion. Human frailty is too strongly marked on 
the face of society to justify any such arrogance. But we 
do claim, that the testimony is conclusive, that there wer© 



19 

among them men of stamina and worth, well fitted for the 
enterprise in which they were embarked ; men, whose char- 
acters even ennobled this grand adventure for American col- 
onization ; men who would not have submitted to such a 
fellowship with rogues and vagabonds as their connection 
with the mission would have demanded. And we know also, 
that Popham and Gorges, the originators of it, were men of 
foresight and intellect enough to guard against the admis- 
sion of such deleterious constituents into a company in 
which great moral firmness and energetic fidelity were 
required. If no soul could be thrown into the manage- 
ment of the expedition, they might very surely anticipate 
a defeat of all their hopes. We may with confidence assert, 
that they looked well to a reasonable preparation for all the 
hazards and exigencies which might impend the execution 
of their noble purposes. 

Accordingly, Gorges says, that in 1606 he sent away a 
ship furnished with men and all necessaries, provisions con- 
venient for the service intended, under the command of 
Capt. Henry Challoung, a gentleman of good family, indus- 
trious, and of fair condition. This ship was taken by the 
Spaniards, and the purpose of the embarkation thereby 
defeated. 

In the year 1607, Gorges further says, " The Lord Chief 
Justice, his friends and associates, sent from Plymouth 
Capt. Popham as President, for that employment, with Capt. 
Raleigh Gilbert, and divers other gentlemen of note, in 
three sail of ships, with one hundred landsmen." As there 



•JO 
were one hundred and twenty in all, there were probably 
at least twenty whom he calls men of note. Seven or eight 
of these are particularly mentioned by Strachey. The per- 
sonal character of the several planters, no one would think 
of setting out on the record. 

The array of quotations from various authors, alleging 
infamy of character in those who made up the colonial com- 
panies, appended to one of the pul)lications which has had 
a free circulation, may have led the incautious reader to the 
conclusion, that the Sagadahock colony, which is the subject 
matter of the whole discourse, was composed of men sent 
thither by a judgment of court or decree of transportation 
for crime ; that they were thieves, robbers, vagabonds, and 
rogues, of every hue and degree. Such is the conclusion 
which it is presumed the author intended to convey to the 
mind of the reader. Such is, we suppose, his honest thought. 
But such a view of their character, we believe, is not jus 
tified by reliable historic authority. 

Let us place by the side of this, the opinion of Hume, the 
historian, to whom the world has been accustomed to look 
with some confidence, for light on the question of England's 
history. " What renders," he says, " the reign of James 
memorable, is the commencement of English colonies in 
America ; colonies established on the noblest footing that has 
been known in any age or nation." A colony projected in 
and starting from the home country, on such a basis as is 
described in the representation of Mr. Thornton, would not 
seem to add much to the honor of the King, by whom it 



21 

was chartered, and under whose auspices it went forth on 
its mission. 

After a careful examination of all the authorities within 
my reach, and especially the adverse citations to which the 
public attention has been called, I am inclined to the 
opinion that the judgment of Hume is entitled to the more 
favorable regard. My impression is that the Sagadahock 
colony was remarkable for the high character of those to 
whom its destiny was committed. Such also seems to have 
been the opinion of Williamson. "The plantation," he 
says, " was undertaken with the determination of great and 
worthy minds." And again, "This colony, the first ever 
attempted by the English in North Virginia, was planned 
and begun with the courage, zeal, and beneficence, which 
did not fear to encounter difficulties, or hazard expense. Its 
projectors and friends believed a colonial establishment, well 
organized and prosperous, would be the common resort and 
asylum of all adventurers to this country, and the means 
of promoting and spreading other settlements to a wide 
extent." 

Hubbard, the author of tlie History of New England, hav- 
ing been born a few years after the colony went out, during 
his younger days must have heard much of it from those who 
were contemporary with its inception and termination. He 
speaks of the design of the authors of it to make it a great 
and flourishing commonwealth; and he deduces that judg- 
ment of it principally from the fact that its whole charge 
was committed to men of quality, who were to reside there 



22 
as commanders-in-cLief. A few of the company lie names 
with their official designation, as " Capt. George Popham, 
for President ; Capt. Rawley Gilbert, for Admiral ; Capt. 
Edward Harlow, for Master of the Ordnance; Capt. Robert 
Davis, for Sergeant Major; and for Marshal, Capt. Ellis 
Best ; and for Secretary, Mr. Seamen. Capt. James Davis 
was to be commander over the fort when it was built ; Mr. 
Gome Carew was to be Searcher." 

These officers, from their titles, imply that there were, at 
least, as many more of an under grade. All these gentle- 
men, he says, were to reside in the country, thus laying the 
foundation of a great superstructure. Gorges' remark, also, 
that beside those he specially named, there were "divers men 
of note" in the expedition, would seem to authorize the same 
conclusion as to tlic grand design of the projectors. Lord 
Bacon, also, as says Strachey, " from the beginning, with 
other lords and earls," was one of the principal counsel 
applied to, to propagate and guide it ; and we know, from 
his Essays on Plantations, what were his views as to the 
character of the persons who should be employed to carry 
out the business of colonization. He says, "it is a shameful 
and unblessed thing, to take the scum of people, and wicked 
and condemned men, to be the people with whom to plant;" 
and in another place, that " no known bankrupt, for sliel- 
ter ; no murderer, or other wicked person, to avoid the law ; 
nor known heretic or schismatic, should be suffered to go 
into these countries." lu another place, he says he gave his 
advice to the King " touching this matter of plantation, and 



I was invited this to do, by the remembrance that when 
the Lord Chief Justice, deceased, (Popham,) served in the 
place wherein I now serve, he labored greatly in the last 
project, touching the plantation of Munster, which hath 
given more light by the errors thereof, than by the direction 
of the same, what to follow." So that the allegation of Lloyd, 
on whom reliance is placed to sustain the position that Bacon 
charged the Popham community as ''the scum of people and 
wicked and condemned men," is entirely groundless. The 
mistakes in colonization against which he would guard the 
King, were suggested by this Munster plantation, and not 
by tliat at Sagadahock. He does not even allude to the 
latter as having in any manner affected his opinions. 

Rees' Cyclopgedia, the material articles of which were 
probably prepared by men versed in the particular matter 
pertaining to the signification of important words, says, 
under the word Colony, " The first settlers of all the Colo- 
nies of New England were men of irreproachable character, 
though not very enlightened in their views, or polished in 
their manners. In process of time, by convicts^ who were 
banished men of desperate fortunes; men of abandoned 
lives." This statement comes from some one well versed 
in the colonial and political history of the country. No man 
will presume to deny that the Popham colony was one of 
the first established in New England. Neither can it be a 
question whether this is the intended import of the lan- 
guage of these authors when they speak of " the first 
colonies." It does not refer to those of Plymouth or Massa- 



24 

chusetts, because these banished men of desperate fortune 
and abandoned lives, were sent before either of these plan- 
tations were attempted. They came over to Virginia in 
large numbers in 3.609. 

These authorities would justify the inference that all the 
colonists were worthy and honorable men. But as before 
remarked, we do not assume such high ground. It is possi- 
ble, and even probable, that the number may have compre- 
hended some whose lives did not bring much honor to the 
race, or who had been violators of the law, disturbers of the 
peace, etc. If there were none such, its composition must 
have made it a wonderful exception to any body or company 
of men ever gathered together for physical labor. Still the 
d^ep interest of Popham, Gorges, and Bacon, in the planta- 
tion, might have brought to the work a class of men unsul- 
lied by any such obliquities. Of this I have no occasion to 
inquire. We claim for them no such character. Our con- 
troversy is with the charge, "that the Sagadahock colonists 
were pressed to the enterprise as endangered by the law, or 
their own necessities" — that they were convicts, etc. 

By a careful examination of all the authorities, which 
have been cited by the opponents of the celebration, not 
more than one of them, I think, can be regarded as relevant 
to the charge. About the time of which tlie authors of 
these extracts speak, England was establishing and had 
plantations in every direction — in the north of Ireland, at 
Wexford, at Longford, at Bermuda, or the Summer Islands, 
at Barbadoes, St. Christopher, Jamestown, Newfoundland, 



25 

the Indies, and other places. The poet Alexander, Earl of 
Sterling, speaks specially of the Popham Plantation, and 
says: "The first company that went of purpose to inhabit 
there, near to Sagadahock, were pressed to the enterprise, 
as endangered by tlie law or by their own necessities." 

In reverting to ancient history, we must remember that 
some of the worst features of humanity, which are still ex- 
hibited on the face of society, notwithstanding a refined civi- 
lization has laid them under its ban and execration, were 
then more prominent, and were even countenanced and 
nourished by the superstitions and excitements of the age. 
The period when Puritanism was in its first stages of devel- 
. opment, was, from tlie very nature of the race, one well fitted 
for the nurture of an uncharitable and slanderous spirit. 
When one's deepest thoughts are stirred, the outward mani- 
festations are frequently not very creditable to God's chil- . 
dren. Slander, though sometimes even the offspring of quiet 
religious sensibilities, was then by no means an uncommon 
element in the intercourse of life. The civilized world was 
excited in the awakening of the human mind to new per- 
ceptions of its rights, and to new aspirations for adventure, 
and for the amelioration of the condition of man's temporal 
being. And in the necessarily contravening agencies of the 
hour, bickerings were engendered, and thence anathemas 
were fulminated, and denunciations broadcast, which were 
as groundless and unauthorized as are tlie reckless aspersions 
which grow out of the base political contentions of the pre- 
sent day. Gov. Winthrop, whom no one can regard as other 



26 

than a pure-minded and honest man, charged the settlers 
at Shawmut, R. I., as being "blasphemers against God and 
all magistrates," merely because of their more liberal reli- 
gion as expounded by Gorton ; whom the court also de- 
nounced as "a blasphemous enemy of the true religion of 
our Lord Jesus Christ," and a part of its members deter- 
mined that he should die for his wickedness. The brethren 
and sisters of the churcli declared him to be " a pestilent 
seducer, a damnal)le heretic." Cotton Mather also says of 
the banished heretics of Rhode Island, that they were "a 
generation of libertines and Familists, Antinomians and 
Quakers, inhabiting tlie fag end of ci'cation." Even the colo- 
nial assemblies in their legislation denounced the Friends, 
as " cursed Quakers," " vagabond Quakers," "incorrigible 
rogues." Roger Williams, John Whcelright, Ann Hutchin- 
son, and numerous others, in the early days of the settle- 
ment of New England, were subjected to similar groundless 
reproacli. But who does not know that tliese were all per- 
sons of pure minds and irreproachable character, whom the 
most exalted morality of the present day would readily em- 
brace as its friends and supporters. And yet they were all 
endangered by the law and pressed into exile. 

And how was it with the Brownists or Puritans in Eng- 
land, at the very time of which we are speaking? Endan- 
gered by the law every hour, pressed into exile by their 
necessities, "beset and watched," says Bancroft, "night and 
day," stigmatized as vipers, and by the application to them 
of every opprobrious epithet afforded by the vocabulary of 



27 

scandal ; and of whom King James says, "I will make them 
conform, or I will harry them out of the land, or else worse," 
"only hang them ; that's all." 

The Star Chamber, the Ecclesiastical Court, the High 
Commission, had full power to reform errors, heresies, and 
schisms, and to make inquiries by the rack, torture, inquisi- 
tion, and imprisonment, and to fine at their will and plea- 
sure, to punish crimes at their discretion. Queen Elizabeth 
had said, that she was raised up by God, as supreme ruler 
over the church, and that all innovations were dangerous to 
the government and merited severe punishment. So also 
thought Lord Bacon. Uniformity in religion, he said, was 
absolutely necessary, and no toleration could safely be given 
to sectaries ; and accordingly in 1593 an act was passed, 
entitled "An Act to retain her Majestie's subjects in due 
obedience," and all who did not conform to the regimen of 
the church must abjure the realm, or endure the penalties 
of disobedience. Breach of the Act of Uniformity was 
punished by fine, confiscation, and imprisonment. It was 
even felony to maintain any opinions against the ecclesiasti- 
cal government. The law laid its hands upon Puritans, 
Catholics, Independents, and dissenters of every class. Two 
Arians under the title of heretics were even burnt at the 
stake. Strange as it may seem, even the Puritans them- 
selves, seem to have sympathized with the principles upon 
which the law was based, and it is said would have despised 
King James if he had not enforced it. 



28 

And now, let me ask, who were the men endangered by 
the law at this period ? In the very year 1607, when the 
tide of religious excitement was at its height, the Puritans 
were compelled to flee from the country, and some of tliem 
departed for Amsterdam, while the Sagadahock colony, over 
the waters, sought the western wilderness. The number of 
dissenters, and recusants of every kind, cannot be computed. 
Sir Walter Raleigh said he was "afraid there were nearly 
twenty thousand Brownists in England," and of all other 
denominations probably the number was not less. Of these 
how small a portion went into Holland. 

With this dark page of memorable English history before 
him, how can a descendant of tlie Puritans reconcile it to 
his own judgment, to his God-given sense of what is true 
anci just, to send forth to the world, such an interpretation 
of the language of that period, as that his readers must de- 
duce from it the infamy of even the Puritans themselves ! 
If there is any one fact in history upon which we may with 
confidence rely, it is that the best of men, the conscientious 
and the true, the friends of education and virtue, of civil 
and religious freedom, the careful and devoted students of 
revealed truth, those who were ready to sul)mit to every 
sacrifice rather than compromit their obligations to God and 
duty, were the persons who, at this time, were endangered 
by the law, and pressed by their necessities into exile. 
Many of these dissenters were destitute of wealth, and "saw 
poverty coming upon them like an armed man," and they 



29 

were thus compelled for a time at least to leave the country. 
Some of the Puritans fled to Holland. Others of more 
adventurous spirit, and perhaps of different religious views, 
probably chose to unite in this expedition to the new world. 
At any rate we may well infer from the knowledge which we 
have of human tendencies, that in the emergency, as many 
would be as likely to select the latter course as the former, 
especially when we know what eminent and worthy persons 
would thus be their companions. Capt. John Smith, who 
knew them as well as any one, designates them as " those no- 
ble captains." We know also that Hakluyt, the Prebendary, 
Crashaw, and Dr. Symonds were deeply interested in these 
colonial enterprises, and in their sermons urged Christians 
and true men to embark in them. These exhortations we 
believe were not without effect. 

The law for the disposition of rogues and vagabonds 
enacted ten years previously, had probably done its work to 
a great extent ; so that but few of that class were now com- 
morant in the kingdom. To understand, therefore, the 
import of this charge of Sir William Alexander, one must 
acquaint himself with the condition of affairs in England at 
the time to which it refers ; and we do not hesitate to assert 
that such was the preponderance of these falsely denomi- 
nated criminals over those actually guilty of crime, that all 
the presumptions of law forbid the translation which has 
been put on the charge. To be endangered by the law, no 
more implied criminal pollution, than unyielding fidelity to 
moral and Christian obligation. 



80 

And besides, the expression when used now, does not or- 
dinarily imply any local guilt. It only expresses the ten- 
dency of one's conduct toward some otfense. If a man is 
from day to day using disloyal language, speaking slander- 
ously of his neighbor, retailing intoxicating liquors, or neg 
lecting any legal obligation, we say of him he is in danger 
of the law. But we never apply that language to one who 
has been guilty of murder, robbery, or theft. On such, at 
once, the law lays its hand. 

But to return to the charge of Sir William Alexander ; 
only two classes are named by him, criminals and the poor, 
as making up the emigration. Being in the alternative, 
the construction may l)e that they were all criminals, or all 
poor meji, impelled to enlist by crime or necessity. As a 
whole every one must admit the statement to be false. We 
know that there were men of note in the number, of whom 
we cannot predicate either of the charges. The only con- 
struction, therefore, which we can reasonably put on the 
statement is, that a part of them went out for the causes 
stated, and these might have gone into the service for neces- 
sary employment. If they did, w^e honor them for it. 
Poverty is no dishonor to humanity, and a readiness for any 
work to meet its demands, exhibits a worthy and commend- 
able spirit. It is probably true that many of them were 
men whose necessities led them to enroll their names for the 
expedition. Some are pressed by their circumstances to 
any work which presents itself. Thousands go into the 



31 

army from the same impulse. Undoubtedly, it has been by 
the instrumentality of men of that condition, that most 
national colonies have been built up. Hume says, " all the 
colonies in America were peopled gradually by the necessi- 
tous and indigent, who at home increase neither wealth nor 
population, and that these plantations have promoted the 
navigation, encouraged the industry, and even perhaps mul- 
tiplied the inhabitants of the mother country." And no 
one familiar with the prominent aspects of human life, will 
doubt that such was the origin of our settlements. But 
Hume nowhere intimates that criminals, or abandoned and 
desperate men, had any agency in building up or defeating 
any colonial enterprise in America. But this is the material 
part of the charge against the emigrants to the Sagadahock. 
I take it for granted that it was intended to apply this 
character to only a portion of the company. Otherwise the 
charge would evince a recklessness of expression, not indica- 
tive of a rigid regard to truth. I know that poets are in 
the habit of taking such liberties in the use of language. 
Imagination has the direction of the pen as much as fact. 
But I have no occasion to impute such an aberration to Sir 
"William Alexander. What were the relations existing 
between him as the proprietor of Nova Scotia, and the 
claimants to the province of Maine, I have not thought it 
necessary to inquire, for it is very probable that a careful 
investigation would so explain, or apply the paragraph ad- 
duced from him, to sustain the charge against these colonists, 
that he would be freed from the reproach of being the slan- 



82 

derer of a brave and self-sacrificing company, defeated in 
their noble purposes by the interposing adversities of an 
inscrutable Providence. 

But it may be added that the words of the English statute 
(even admitting that he intended the import which the his- 
toric reader might accord to them) do not necessarily imply 
any moral obliquity ; as by its terms men of unimpeachable 
character might be subject to its condemnation. It provided 
that poor or begging scholars, idle persons "using any craft, 
palmestry, physiognomy, pretending to tell fortunes, or such 
other like fantastical imaginations," proctors, procurers, 
patent-gatherers, fencers, common players of interludes, 
jugglers, tinkers, peddlers, petty chapmen, common laborers 
who would not work at prices fixed by those who would 
employ them, should be deemed rogues and vagabonds, and 
thus subject to expatriation ; a classification sufficiently 
comprehensive to include many of the loafersand gentlemen 
of the present day. 

How any of these adventurers were endangered by the 
law is not explained. By any construction which I can put 
on the charge it is felo de se. If they were convicts and 
were transported here by decree of Popham, then their re- 
turn to England would be greeted only by the halter. Death 
has always been the penalty of such a violation of the judg- 
ment of transportation. It is conclusive that they never 
returned, or that they were not banished convicts. If there 
was any other judgment against them than that of transpor- 
tation, then Popham, and no other judge in England, had 



8?5 

power to wrest them from its penalties ; to take them from 
the jails, or any other place where the law had ordered them. 
It is just as certain, too, as any fact can be made by leg-al 
or civil history, that no statute authorized transportation of 
criminals to America until many years after the death of 
Popham. It is admitted that there is no evidence of banish- 
ment hither till 1G19. The act of 1598 substituting ban- 
ishment for other penalties, and of which Popham is said to 
have been the author, gave no authority for that purpose. 
Blackstone does not even allude to it, and Christian in his 
notes on Blackstone merely remarks, "it is said exile was 
then first introduced." But it was many years afterward 
before transportation to America was allowed by statute. 
Such is the plain testimony of the books. Any act author- 
izing such transportation thither would have been an abso- 
lute nullity. There were no means of carrying it into effect. 
No colonies then existed here, and there was no intercourse 
with the country of such a character that criminals could be 
conveyed to their destination. If Popham stocked planta- 
tions with convicts, they were plantations then in existence. 
He knew of no plantation here up to the time of his death. 
The company which left England under his auspices, had 
as yet, no location, and to him there was no certainty it 
ever would have one. As a judge, he could no more order 
a criminal to be sent here than to be transported to the 
moon. If transportation was authorized by statute, England 
had plantations enough as before stated to meet all its pro- 
visions. 



I may also hero say, that penal colonics must be national 
colonies. No judge would have the power to trespass on 
private rights, by crowding criminals into the territorial 
possessions of individuals or corporations, and thus virtually 
dominating all honest and true men, upon whoso action 
alone could the prosperity and success of the plantation be 
secured. 

But we have not yet wholly disposed of the charge. This 
expression "endangered by the law," may admit of another 
construction ; that these men had been guilty of some of- 
fen.ses and were thus in jeopardy from their transgressions 
and liable to prosecution as criminals. How such men were 
so situated as to be pressed into tliis enterprise I cannot 
conjecture. If one had been guilty of a crime of any cluir- 
acter, we should, I think, be mucli puzzled to discover, how . 
Chief Justice Popham could step in, and wrest him from the 
punishment which awaits his offense. I should like to be 
informed in what age of the world, dark as it sometimes has 
been, a judge has been allowed to come down from the bench, 
and take offenders under his special care, and shield them 
from punishment. By the law of England as then and now 
existing, Chief Justice Popham would have been an acces- 
sory and liable to transportation from such a procedure. 
The man who attempts to defeat public justice by aiding 
and abetting a criminal in his escape from the vengeance of 
the law, makes himself liable to all the penalties to which 
the offender Vv'as exposed. What must be the regimen, or 
moral and social status of any community where the Chief 



35 

Justice is seen going about hunting up criminals to rescue 
them from punishment, while he himself is a conservator of 
the peace, and bound by law to admiuister justice to them 
in the way pointed out by statute. 

Then, again, how was he to accomplish his object by such 
a proceeding ? If these men had the terrors of the law 
staring them in the face, and were thus for the time secured 
from immediate peril, were they uot just as much endan- 
gered by the law, when they returned to England ? Nine 
months absence from the kingdom worked no condonation 
of their crimes. Their liability to punishment was undim- 
inished ; and if the purposes of the home company were 
defeated by an inexcusable abandonment of the plantation, 
the exasperation of the Chief Justice and his copartners, 
would not have done much to avert from them the penalties 
now more deserved than when they departed. In any view 
of this charge against the colonists, it has not the shadow of 
a foundation. 

And here I cannot but express my surprise, that any 
careful historic student should have so misapplied and mis- 
apprehended the numerous extracts whicli have been cited 
in aid of these groundless invectives against these planters 
as to have relied on them to sustain the position assumed in 
regard to their moral attributes. I have remarked before 
that not more than one of his citations, implying the infamy 
of this company, had in the mind of the author any reference 
to it. And as to the calumny of Sir William Alexander, I 
think it manifest that it has no support in the imperfect his- 



tory wliicli wo have of tlieir character and action. The 
whole presti.uc of tlic entei'prise is against it. 1 have not 
seen his map of New Enghmd, and take tlic remark as I 
find it with the speech. Bancroft calls him '•'an amhitious 
writer of turgid I'hymes and trogedies." JJut passing this 
as so contrary to all other authority, we re{>eat that all the 
remaining extracts arc wanting in 'the main attri)»nte, ap- 
plicahility to tlu; matter in issue. So far as reference is 
made to American colonics, the citations apply only to 
Jamestown, and perhaps othei's initiateil after the death of 
Popham. It cannot be otherwise. Let any one read the 
chapter in Bancroft's Ilistoiy of the United States, in rela- 
tion to Jamestown, oiid he will at once be convinced that 
the writer had that colony in view. It answers to their 
several descriptions in every particular, and it clearly sus- 
tains the foregoing argument. The first companv that 
landed there, was not a company of vagal)onds or culj)rits ; 
but of the one hundred and five emigrants, about half of 
them were gentlemen, and in England tiien, no vagabond or 
culprit wore that ajjpcllation. They had been of indolent 
and free habits, somewluit dissolute, but wei'e not criiuinals 
or involuntary exiles. There were twelve laljorers, four 
carpenters, and a i'cw other mechanics. They arrived in 
James river in December, IGOH, and having viewed various 
places, estal)lished themselves at Jamestown. But there was 
great want of appropriate faculty, skill, and jadgment among 
them. Most of them had l)een unaccustomed to work ; 
more familiar with tlu; drawing-room than with labor; and 



6i 

ill consequence of iniprndcnt uiauagemcnt half of them died 
in one year. More colonists were sent for, and in 1609, 
came out the vagabonds, criminals, etc. Bancroft says of 
them ; tliese immigrants were "dissolute gallants, packed off 
to escape ivorse desiuiies at /lome, broken tradesmen, gentle- 
men impoverished in sj»ii'itand fortune ; rakes and libertines, 
m(3ro fit to corrupt than to found a commonwealth." So 
that Smith, who I'ound no fault with his lirst company, said 
a thousand such men were of but little worth. Such was 
the contempt with which this South Virginia Plantation was 
regarded in England, that it was introduced by the stage 
poets, as says Bancroft, as a theme of scorn and derision. 
Those who were members of the colony said, "this plantation 
has undergone the reproofs of the base world. Our own 
brethren laugh us to scorn ; .and papists and players, the 
scum and dregs of the earth, mock such as help build up the 
walls of Jerusalem." 

Bancroft in his history, ascribes no sucii character to the 
Po|»ham colonists, neither can any such be drawn from the 
early accounts of them which were published to the world. 
No one, who had any interest in the colony, even hints that 
any such men were found among them. The only charge 
against the colony was, a want of fortitude to abide the 
future developments of tiieir situation, and coining excuses 
for abandoning the plantation. 

But supj)ose for the moment the charge to be true, to the 
extent intended l)y one of the authors. I presume he would 



38 

not heave his readers understand, that the whole emigration 
were embraced in the denunciation. He would not include 
the officers. If there were some among the whole number, 
whose lives were not what they should have been, are tlie 
company to be branded as criminals ? We do not in many 
cases, consider the moral condition on whose physical powers 
we are to rely, as even a material subject of inquiry. As 
we have before remarked, the nature of tlie enterprise is 
never judged by or through any such medium. On the 
contrary, we carry even to an unreasonaljle extent, the 
habit of attributing all the skill, and ascribing all tlie praise 
and renown of successful action, to those only to wliom were 
committed the chief management and direction of the work 
We seek for skillful and honest officers, and never feel that 
we are leaving our interests in jeopardy, by neglecting to 
ascertain the character of the sub-agents. The Old Do 
minion, until its recent mad aberration, had maintained and 
was proud of its high position, notwithstanding a majority of 
its people had, in view of the Avorld, scarcely any character 
whatever. I do not say that such an indifference to the 
moral element in our operatives is wise, or immaterial to 
success. On the contrary, I know, that it finds no support 
in the principles of the grand economy of tlie Infinite ; and 
it is not out of place here to add, that such was Avithout 
doubt the opinion of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. Of all the 
great and the good in 1637, including New England's noblest, 
the Carvers, the Bradfords, the Winslows, the Winthrops, 
and Dudleys, he was selected " to reform the evils and 



39 

mischiefs," which had come over the Massachusetts and 
Plymouth colonics, and was appointed Governor of the whole 
territory. Whatever an interested or jaundiced criticism 
may now say of him, King Charles and his council accorded 
to him a noble spirit, and a wise and trustful judgment. So 
also did the Plymouth colonists. They had involuntarily 
landed where they had no right to establish themselves, and 
finding they could not safely abide there, they resorted to 
him, and availed themselves of his well recognized influence 
to obtain a grant of the territory, in which he succeeded "to 
the particular satisfiiction and content of them all." Pal- 
frey says of him, that "he had an uncommon talent for Inisi- 
ness, and indefatigable love of labor." A man who can 
believe that such an one would select a band of vagabonds, 
rogues, and criminals, to carry out his own purposes of 
establishing a plantation which should expand into a great 
and flourishing Commonwealth, must be imbued with a 
degree of credulity which would swallow the must absurd 
quixotism ever offered to the mind of man. 

But, after all, the Christian rule of determining character 
ever has been, and ever will be, the most reliable. Taking 
this as tlie standard, is there anything discoverable in the 
deportment of the colonists while here, on which the denun- 
ciation can lay hold as authority ? Is not the evidence 
plenary that they were peaceful, industrious, and obedient 
in carrying forward the object of the founders of the colony? 
What says the only authentic history of their operations ? 



40 

"Most of the hands labored in building the fort, on which 
twelve guns were mounted ; and the car})enters in l)uilding 
the pinnaee ; Captain Gilbert with a part of the colony went 
off on a cruise west. Captain Davis was up the river with 
another portion. Tiiey also dug wells, built fifty houses, a 
church and a store-house," not, of course, like the houses, or 
like the churches, of modern civilization. When Captain 
Davis returned from England in the spring, though Presi- 
dent Popham was dead, all things were found "in a good 
state of forwardness. Many furs were obtained, good store 
of sarsaparilhi, and tlie pinnace was linislied." Now, it is 
well known that the winter tlu-ough whicli they had passed 
was one of the most severe on record ; while tliese planters 
had only been inured to the mild climate of the west of 
England, whose snow and ice seldom interfere with human 
activities. Here then it seems to me there is evidence of the 
most satisfactory character, that these persons were not only 
intent on, and obedient to, the purposes for which they were 
sent here, l)ut were also men of energy and determination. 
John Smith says they "found nothing but extreme extremi- 
ties." To have survived tliese hitherto inexperienced rigors 
of tlie winter, such houses as they had must liave been built 
with some considerable care, and with special regard to 
warmth and i)rotection from the fury of the storm. The 
building also of a vessel of fifty tons during the same inclem- 
ent season, when the timber and materials were to be cut 
and brought from tlie woods, was by no means, an inconsid- 
erable work. Purchas evidently regards this as a rcmarka- 



41 

ble feat. Men unaccustomed to these Avinter severities, 
could find but little opportunity for ?uch out-door labor. 
Strachey says, virtually, that they had done all which was 
expected of them. 

Such positive testimony as this seems to negative com- 
pletely, all cliargcs of the unsuitableness of tlic settlers for 
the business on which they were sent. But there is circum- 
stantial or negative evidence to the same effect. Gorges 
had taken a dee}) interest in establishiiig jdantations on 
these sliores, and spent much of his property in his endea- 
vors to carry out his wishes. One defeated in liis aspira- 
tions, the object of which he had the fullest conlidence of 
realizing, is always ready to charge the failure on the imme- 
diate agents employed, if any foundation for tlic charge can 
be discovered, in their action upon tlie matter committed to 
them. Yet in his account of this colony he nowhere even 
hints at any inefficiency, any neglect of duty, any disorder 
or disobedience on the part of officers or men ; but ascribes 
all, as does Strachey, and other writers of tlie time, to the 
unfortunate death of the president, and of the principal 
supporter of the movement at home, Cliief Justice Popliam. 
When he is urging laborers to come forward and embark in 
the profitable enterprise of speedy emigration to tlie new 
country, and wlien he had occasion to apologize for his fail- 
ures, he never attributes his ill-success to any negligence or 
demoralization on the part of those, to whom he had in- 
trusted this plantation. No man can read the eighth chap- 
ter of Gorges' brief narration, and not l)e fully satisfied that 



42 

such a thought never came over his mhid. He makes no 
alhision to any mutiny or contention, the invariable mani- 
festations of desperadoes, wlienever and wherever congre- 
gated. So far as any liglit has come down to us on the 
action of tlie colonists, all things went on smoothly and 
well. Neither Strachey or any contemporary writer imputes 
to them any unfaithfulness to their employers. The destruc- 
tion of their store-house and provisions by fire, the death of 
the president, and of the chief patron of the plantation, and 
the unparalleled severity of the weather, are stated by all, 
as the causes of the failure. Now if these men were such 
desperate spirits as they are alleged to have been, how are 
these things to be explained ? 

It is indeed said by Sewall in his Ancient Dominions of 
Maine, a work indicative of juuch labor and great research, 
for which the author deserves remuneration far beyond what 
has yet been awarded to him, that there is a tradition that 
the colonists came in collision with the natives after the 
death of their president. This statement I suppose is leased 
on the same fact mentioned in Morse tt Parish's history of 
New England. But I think it has not sufficient reliable 
authority to be entitled to any place in our history. No 
others of the many writers of these times seem to give any 
credence to it. Increase Mather says, immediately after 
concluding his account of the Sagadahock colony, "as yet 
there v/as not (so far as I can learn) any disturbance from 
the Indians, then the only natives of the land. But not 
long after this an unworthy shij)master whose name was 



43 

Hunt, 'seized and sold' twenty-seven of them into slavery." 
Purclias also says, "Some of us resolved once more to try" 
a plantation, and sent out Captain Hobson. "But in all 
human affairs there is nothing more certain than the uncer- 
tainty thereof." "A little before this, one Hunt, a worth- 
less fellow, had been there and seized" twenty-four of the 
natives and sold them as slaves. From this the savages 
contracted a hatred against the English, and studied for 
revenge, and so the enterprise was abandoned. Tliis action 
of Hunt he says, was the cause of all the troubles with them 
in the nortli-eastern parts of this land. When it is said in 
the Jesuit Relations, that the natives defeated the Englisli in 
1G08 and 1609, reference cannot be had to tlicse colonists, 
who, or most of them, returned to England in the beginning 
of 1(308. Others were here fishing and trafficking, and 
Gorges says of them, "in their manners and beliavior they 
were worse than the savages," and he specially enumerates 
their iniquities. These were the men, if any, about the 
Kennebec to whom tradition refers. I can add, surely, that 
Gorges had no such knowledge of any bad conduct in his 
planters. 

The second leading objection to the commemoration, is the 
alleged entire inefficiency of the Sagadahock enterprise on 
the subsequent colonization of New England, or its l)arren- 
ness of any profitable results. After a lapse of two hundred 
and fifty-seven years from the landing, tlie question, what 
effect the colony had in the promotion of this great work. 



44 

becomes of difficult solution. Wc have but very iuiperfcct 
records of its history. To my miud, it is very manifest, 
that beside the evidence which has found its way down 
through the many generations intervening, more particular 
accounts of it were current in the years follov.'ing its habi- 
tancy hero than are now within our reach. Strachey wrote 
his sketch of it, he says, "to epitomize a few things which 
have not by any one been published or written." This 
epitome covers but a little more than a diary of two months. 
Gorges' brief narration was written many years after, and is 
only a general history of his connection with it. Some few 
facts not stated in these works art- found in other publications 
of the century. ]\Iuch, which before has not seen the light 
here, has just been published in the Memorial Volume ; and 
there can be little douI)t that the researches now making in 
the English archives, will be successful in leading to impor- 
tant revelations bearing on this inquiry. 

But enough now beams out of pultlished history to prove 
that it was the received sentiment for years after the return 
of the colony, that this enterprise was the initiative of those 
movements which led to the settlement of New England. 
Tlie immediate result of it was uudouljtedly inauspicious to 
those on whom devolved the exj)ense ; and for the time it 
discouraged any general or large designs for plantation. 
Probably also this apparent la[)se of colonization might have 
engendered the belief in France that a door was thereby 
opened to a more sure a[)propriation of the territory to her 
own })ossession. But the action of the French, under this 



45 

new inspiration, aroused Eugiand to the necessity of more 
etToctual movements to secure her own title. The encroach- 
ments of the French, therefore, following the evacuation of 
Sabino, do not prove that evacuation disastrous to the causa 
of English colonization. Adverse results are not \uifre- 
qucntly the inducement to action more wise, and thence 
more auspicious in issues. "(Torges," says Belknap, "was 
heartily engaged in the settlement of the country. He sunk 
his estate and reaped no profit. Yet his enterprising s])irit 
excited emulation in others, who had the advantage of im- 
proving his plans, and avoiding his mistakes. 

Xow whether the i)revalent opinion of the age liad its 
basis in tliis incidental or contingent result of the planta- 
tion, we have not at present sufficient data Avhereby to 
determine. But that it was the commonly received senti- 
ment, that in its various relations it was the introduction to 
the settlement of New p]ngland, is very clear. The address 
of the Scotch adventurers to King James in 1630, declares 
that New England was planted by Chief Justice Fopham ; 
and that by this possession its territory was secured to tlie 
crown of Great Britain. The averments of other writers 
found in the notes to Foor's vindication of Gorges, confirm 
the same fact. King James also, sustained by his council 
declares, that Gorges first seized the coasts of New England, 
thus disregarding all whicli had been done by voyngers in 
previous years. Cliamplain, in addressing the king, says, 
"in 1607, England seized the coast of New France, where 
lies Acadia, on which they imposed the name of New Eng- 



46 

land." Til a work outitlod "Eiicoura<;'cmeiit to Colonies," 
published in 1(125, it is said "Sir John Fopliani sent the tirst 
company that went to inhabit tliere, near to Sagadaliock." 
Captain John Mason in a letter to Sir Edward Coke, in 
1G32, says, "Plantations in New England have been settled, 
about twenty-five years," that is from 1G07. Gorges, the 
grandson of Sir Ferdinando, in his description of New Eng- 
land, says, "in 160(3, the country began to be settled by the 
English by public authority, they built a fort at the mouth 
of the Sagadaliock," the most significant emblem of national 
claim and authority, saying to all others, stand away at your 
j)eril. lUoom says, all attempts to settle the country pre- 
vious to the Popham plantation were utter failures, clearly 
importing that such was not the issue of this. And with all 
this, contemporary New England authorities concur. The 
first sentence of Increase Mather's History of New England, 
the preface to which is dated September 14, 1G77, is, "It is 
now above seventy years since that part of this continent, 
which is known by the name of New England, was discov- 
ered and possession thereof taken by the English." Hub- 
bard, in 1677, published a work with this title, "A narrative 
of tlie troubles with the Indians in New England from the 
first planting thereof in the year 1607, to tliis present year 
1677." Here, the first thing which meets the eye of the 
reader, is the plain declaration standing out in large capi- 
tals, that "the Popham colonists planted New England." 
For no one will pretend that any other colony in ] 607, at- 
tempted to fix a settlement on our shores. This declaration 



47 

is hero made in such a manner, as to call to it the attention 
of all objectors and cavilers. 

But the authors of the seventeenth century arc not the 
only writers who have proclaimed the important fact that 
here began the colonization of New England. In the ac- 
count of ancient Peraaquid, as published in our Historical 
Collections in 1857, the writer says of the first landing of the 
Popham Colony, "Such was the auspicious welcome from 
fair Monahigan ; and here did tlie feet of the pioneers of 
English colonization on our shores, first press American 
soil." As a lawyer I venerate the record. Human memory 
may be faithless to its trust, but the record never forgets. 

To this mass of testimony is to be added the evidence 
before mentioned. The fifty houses built by the colony, 
though perhaps not much superior to the Indian wigwams, 
and the church, without doubt the first house of public 
worship on these shores, were efficient agencies in the main- 
tainance of this possession. When the colonists loft the 
country, these houses still remained, as notice to the world 
of English claim and title. This erection of houses and 
other buildings affords strong evidence of right and of pos- 
session. Civilized Europe regarded it then as now, as con- 
tinued occupancy while such erections remained. The 
dwelling, though tenantless, is constructive possession. But 
we have no right to assume that none of them were occupied 
in subsequent years. On the contrary, there is strong pre- 
sumption that they were still resorted to as accommodation 
for British subjects in their traffic with the natives. The 



48 

Jesuit Relations affirm that the English were there in IGOO; 
and all the historians affirm that this lishing and trafhckiiig 
on the coast was continued and becoming more extensive 
from year to year. Sir Francis Popham sent his sliips there 
annually, and all along the shore, the careful reader of 
history will be satisfied that Englishmen had begun to have 
some kind of a habitation. But su]>i»ose that there was but 
a solitary subject of King James abiding in the land, English 
laws and ordinances which had been promulgated by Pop- 
ham, would still be here, with their beneficent ministry, to 
sliield and protect all who should come to these shores. 
Tliough this unholy rel)ellion which is now upon us, should 
continue until the last remnant of humanity sliould stand 
amidst its desolations, the constitution and laws of this great 
republic will still remain to embrace and protect all who 
shall come here to dwell. 

The works to which we have referred, were published at 
various periods during the seventeenth century, and during 
all that time no counter statements or denials of the princi- 
pal fact alleged, have yet been discovered in any of the 
histories or other puijlications then extant. The acquies- 
cence was general in the fact that the Popham enterprise 
began the settlement of New England. The averments to 
that effect are made in direct positive terms, not only before 
the landing at Plymouth, but even into tiie eighteenth cen- 
tury. Many voyages were made to the coast for the ])ur- 
poses of discovery, before and after the settlement at Saga- 
dahock. Men were then as aspiring and eager for fame as 



4t> 

now. The discovery and settlement of the new world, 
absorbed tlie attention of many adventurons spirits, who 
wonld be as jealous of their rights and as sensitive to their 
claims to the honors of the world, as any of the race at the 
present day. How then are we to explain this universal 
acquiescence in this positively declared precedence of the 
Popham Colony, if any otiier persons or corporations had 
claims invested witli a higher authority ? What man, if he 
had the spirit of a man, or what body of men cognizant of 
an honest title to the merit of having initiated the great 
work of securing to their nation, and settling the new world, 
would have suffered this glory to be reft from them, without 
uttering a word of objection to these disparaging assump- 
tions of the Popham colonists ? or these unauthorized state- 
ments of these authors of the age ? This silence of all 
pretenders, if there were any such, carries with it the con- 
viction that the merit was awarded to those to whom it was 
due. The declaration of >Sewall, therefore, in his Ancient 
Dominions of Maine, that " the Sagadahock enterprise was 
undoubtedly the beginning proper of European colonial life 
with the English race, not only in Maine, but in New Eng- 
land," has a sure basis in the well declared sentiment of the 
seventeenth century. 

But the argument is not confined to this evidence of the 
direct agency of the colony in promoting the settlement of 
the country. There were collateral influences going out 
from it auxiliary to the work, which probably permeated the 

home community, as well as the tribes wliicli had hitherto 
4 



been lords of the wilderness. Tlie letter of President Fop- 
ham to tlie king, iji which he says, "my well considered 
opinion is that in these regions the glory of God may be 
easily evidenced, tlie empire of your majesty enlarged, and 
the public welfare of the Britons s])eedily augmented," 
must liave awakened a spirit of emigration throughout the 
nation ; while at the same time it awakened in tlie govern- 
ment an interest in securing the possession and title of so 
desirable a territory. This it was, probably, which induced 
tlie determination, and the order to Argal to drive the French 
from the territory. But the necessary association of the 
colonists with the natives must have been still more opera- 
tive in working out a secure establishment of the race on 
this continent, by softening existing savage asperities, and 
kindling in their uncultivated minds, some sense of the 
value of education, and the other innumerable blessings of 
a (Jliristian civilization. They were here eight or nine 
months, and during that period there seems to have been no 
restriction to a free intercourse with the tribes. Skidwares, 
who had been treacherously carried over the waters, and 
had had the opportunity of witnessing the aptitude of moral, 
social, and political culture, to minister to the comfort of 
humanity, was one of the expedition, and must liave done 
much to promote a friendly communion with the wild sons 
of the forest, and to inspii-e tiiem with a respect for the 
white man, and thereby induce a desire to acquaint them- 
selves with the means and agencies by which he had been 
enabled to subdue all things to himself. When the vessels 



51 

came to anchor the Indians came on board. Some remained 
all night. The next day they came again, with some of 
their women, for trade. The colonists visited them at their 
honses, where, through the instrumentality of Skidwares, 
after their fears were subdued, they were kindly received 
and entertained ; and though this native left them and 
returned to his tribe, he carried with him the humane and 
softening influences, which he had acquired by his contact 
with civilized life. The Indians came to them afterward 
in large numbers. On a Sunday, Nahanada, and the princi- 
pal men of the tribes, attended their public meetings both 
morning and evening, and with great reverence and silence. 
One of them was so captivated by the service that he wished 
to remain there sometime longer. All received gracious 
and pleasant treatment, and left the colonists with the best 
of feelings toward them. The effect of this interview was 
highly favorable to a modification of the Indian character. 
Bloom says, "the people seemed much affected with our 
men's devotion, and would say, King James is a good king, 
and his God a good God, but our god Tanto, a naughty 
god, whom they had worshiped only through fear." Who 
can tell the effect of such a conversion as is implied in that 
fact. Strachey gives us no history of the doings or daily 
life of the colonists, or of their relations with the natives for 
the last six months of their habitancy at Sabino. But we 
have no reason to suppose that the intercourse thus com- 
menced was broken off, or that the visits of the Indians were 
discontinued, or the occasional enjoyment of public worship 



with the plantation abandoned. The inferences are alto- 
gether adverse to such a conclusion. They undoubtedly 
kept up their visits and traffic, as long as the planters re- 
mained. Tlie results of such intercourse may be well ima- 
gined. A great transformation had evidently through some 
instrumentality been wrought in the character of Somerset. 
As Thornton says, he was a glory to us ; though, why a glory 
if we had nothing to do with his conversion, or in the for- 
mation of his true and noble character ? It is not very 
likely that he received much civilizing or religious instruc- 
tion from the fishermen who landed on the coast. Gorges' 
account of these white men precludes any such judgment as 
that. It is much more i)robable that the truly Christian 
attributes Avdiich he exhibited, were the result of the beneii- 
cent influences which went out from the stated Christian 
services at Sabino, and his intercourse Avith the colonists, 
than of any otlier agencies, which are discoverable in the 
histories of the age. While then, as we have before stated, 
Maine, in her Gorges, secured to the Puritans the place of 
habitation, on which they had involuntarily fallen, 'Hlie 
voice of Samoset," says Sewall, "-crying, welcome English, 
which came to the Plymouth colonists from the environing 
forests, was probably the salvation of that colony." 

And now, why should we not commemorate this new era 
in the progress of civilization ? What more important event 
in unrolling the scroll of history meets our vision, than the 
inauguration of the great enterprise of creating as it were, a 



5:3 

new world, where the human mind might expand its powers 
in the erection of a social, intellectual, and moral super- 
structure, which should be for a wonder to the nations, and 
an asylum for wronged and oppressed humanity, in its 
escape from the evils and bondage of eastern tyranny and 
despotism ? This extended territory, large enough for the 
support of all the inhabitants of earth, had through the suc- 
cession of ages from its creation, continued an unbroken 
wilderness, where ignorance and barbarism had held their 
orgies in the moral darkness which overshadowed it through- 
out its entire expanse. More than a hundred years had 
elapsed since Columbus had revealed the new world to the 
nations of Europe. The voice of Infinite Wisdom for the 
fulfillment of its great design, had come over the waters, 
calling for the culture of its virgin soil. Though the new 
earth was beautiful, and grand in its wildness, yet in the 
conception of the Great Architect, it was to become more 
grand, and more magnificent, in being subdued to the great 
purposes of humanity, in becoming the field for the growth 
and expansion of the human intellect, where truth should 
shed its heavenly beams, and where the holy religion of the 
Redeemer, by its sympathies, its refining and purifying in- 
fluences, its gentleness and its harmonizing spirit, should 
tune all hearts for the highest enjoyments of earth, and the 
communion and holy orisons of heaven. Barbarism, nur- 
tured through unnumbered generations, with all its cruel 
attributes and superstitions, was to be subjected to the soft- 
ening and subduing influences of the arts, learning, and en- 



54 

lightenment of civilized Europe. Tlic wild man of the 
forests was to be redeemed from the thralldom of igrnorance 
and iuhuraaiiity, and the whole land to be made bright in 
the glow of freedom, literature, morality, and religion. Was 
not then the first glimpse of the awaking of Europe to the 
great work, to be hailed by every philanthropic heart as the 
harbinger of momentous results ? Was there not in the 
spirit which then began to spring into life, the spirit of reso- 
lution and enterprise to take hold of and carry it forward, 
something noble and heroic and worthy of a great nation ? 
And wlien this sublime thought, this grand conception of 
securing this extensive territory to the blessings of a Chris- 
tian civilization, was organized by Gorges and Popham for 
the purpose of an immediate development through the 
necessary activities and measures, who will say that that day 
was not one long to be remembered ? And when the grand 
project had so far advanced, that the ''Gift of God," in the 
words of Mr. Sewall, having survived the perils of the ocean 
"freighted with all the elements of European civilization, 
under the sanction of law and religion, began to land her 
cargo at the mouth of the Sagadahock," what man who has 
within him enough of the divine, to claim for himself the 
name of a man, would hesitate to award to that day an hon- 
orable distinction above the ordinary days of life? Why, if 
tlie Indian could for the occasion, have been so far trans- 
formed as to have had the sensibilities and foresight of cul- 
tivated life, and the instrumentalities of our public celebra- 
tions, bells and cannon would have sent their peans through 



55 

and over all the valleys and mountains of the land. Does 
any one deny the historic fact published to the world in 1(325, 
that Sir John Popham sent the first colony that came on 
purpose to inhabit here, and that it landed at Sagadahock ? 
Does any one deny the day which has been consecrated, to 
be the true day, when the planters first set foot on this then 
new domain of England ? No such denials come from any 
source. Now in our public celebi^ations what do we claim 
to commemorate ? Are they instituted in remembrance of 
the consequences alone, whicli have flowed from the accom- 
plishment of some noble object, or in memory and honor of 
the noble, valiant, magnanimous, skillful, and self-sacrific- 
ing spirit by which that object has been attained ? Why do 
we honor and hail with patriotic joy the Fourth of July ? 
Not because of the innumerable blessings which we enjoy 
as a free and independent nation, coming down to us from 
the brave declaration of 1776 ; for this memorable day was 
celebrated long before our liberty and independence were 
secured. It was hallowed as spontaneously, and with as 
much zest in 1777, 1778, 1779, and 1780, as in any subse- 
quent time. And yet there were dark periods during these 
years, when even the stoutest hearts trembled for the issue. 
The day was then honored and distinguished above other 
days, not because of the completion of the work of which 
that declaration was the programme, but rather in memory 
of the liigh and holy purpose, the patriotism, fearlessness, 
and true nobleness of the men, who thus dared to brave all 
the power of England, in consecrating heart and soul, and 



oG 

life itself, to the great cause of freedom. And this is the 
truly sound, Clu'istiau basis of commemoration. Any other 
which excludes this, would indicate a forgetfulness of the 
great interests of humanity. If the labors and enterprise of 
men were only to be honored for their successful results, 
one of the most material elements of human progress would 
be completely paralyzed. As in law it is the animus which 
constitutes crime, so in the adjudications of social life, self- 
sacrifice, nobility, and devotion of soul alone, have any 
claim for praise and grateful remembrance. The man, who 
from the irresistible energies of an innate benevolence, is 
carried forward to the jeopardy of his own life, to the rescue 
of another from drowning, cannot be shorn of his honor by 
the fact, that by the Providence of God, his noble purpose 
was defeated. 

So, if we had no evidence of even a partial success of the 
great enterprise, when on the nineteenth day of August, 
1607, tins Jiew territory was consecrated by prayer, and 
dedicated to the sublime purpose of the moral, social, and 
Christian elevation of the race, in a land overshadowed 
through almost endless anterior ages by heathenish dark- 
ness, we might well come to remember together, those he- 
roic spirits, those brave, courageous men, who through the 
perils of the ocean, had landed on this continent, animated 
by the glorious purpose of inaugurating it for its high des- 
tiny ; that "brave and hardy crew," as says Willis, "who 
here planted the banner of St. George, and gave to Old 
England lawful and actual possession of a New England, 



57 

which for a hundred and fifty years was the fairest jewel of 
her crown." 

They did not, indeed, fulfill to the letter the high pur- 
poses of the projectors. When heaven and earth together 
cons{)ire to frustrate the councils of man, it is by no means 
the part of wisdom, to disregard the monitions of such high 
authority. The chief patron of the colony had died. So 
had its president. Death also called home the second in 
command. Tiie flames had laid waste their store-house and 
its contents ; and the unparalleled rigors of the winter had 
come over them with a power sufficient to chill all emotions 
of ambition, and they, or most of them, succumbed to the 
adversities of their condition. Purchas says, "the unsea- 
sonable winter was fit to freeze the heart of a plantation." 
Contemporary history records that these were the sole causes 
of the failure of the enterprise ; and charges no lack of for- 
titude or fidelity on the brave spirits to whom its destinies 
were committed. 

But thougii througli all their adversities a partial failure 
ensued, yet in its direct and incidental influences, it brought 
effectual aid to the great work of Christian civilization. 
We appeal once more to tlie writer of the article on Ancient 
Pemaquid, in our Historical Collections, as authority. 
Quoting from Strachey the fact that on the first Sunday 
after tlie arrival of tlie colony, and on the occasion of the 
organization of the government under the laws of England, 
a sermon was delivered by Mr. Seymour, their preacher, he 
adds, " Thus Puritanism tinctured New England history 



58 

at the start ; the preacher and the sermon a/read// detested in 
England, ivere happily inaugurated on Ne-w England soil, 
the chiefest features in her future policy and history ; her 
very life.'''' Well is it then, that on this spot, some enduring 
monument should be erected, 

Wno FIRST FROM THE SIIOEES OF ENULAND, 
fOUNDED A COLONY IN NEW ENGLAND, 

August, 1607. 

HE DROUGHT INTO THESE 'niLDS. 

ENGLISH LAWS AND LEARNINU. 

AND THE FAITH AXD THE CIIURfH OF CHRIST." 

But it is said that these men in tlieir migration to this 
wilderness, had other objects in view, than the planting and 
building up a Clu-istian nation. Suppose they had. Where 
are the men, or where the body of men, who assume the 
physical labor of any great undertaking, who have no other 
object before them, than the benefit which may enure to 
the nation, the church, or the world, by their success ? No 
more patriotic soldiery ever buckled on their armor, than 
that which now hazards life, and its genial associations, in 
the defense of this free and beneficent government, under 
whose auspices so much good lias come to every fireside. 
But who thinks to entitle these noble men to the glory of 
success on the battle-field, or to the gratitude of tlic nation, 
that they should have entered the service witli no eye to 
their monthly pay, or to the bounties offered by a patriotic 



59 

people ? Who expects our armies to be recruited, except 
by the inspirations of a large pecuniary liberality on the part 
of our citizens ? Who expects the minister of the gospel to 
labor for the redemption of Iiumanity from the tlu-aldom of 
sin, without pecuniary reward ? 

I may here add, that no valuable work, invention, or dis- 
covery ever loses its importance because it was the result of 
mere accident. Many of the material appliances, or auxil- 
iaries to the happiness of liunian life, and the advancement 
of science and the useful arts, have come to the author, as 
it were, by inspiration ; and yet we do not the less honor 
but almost reverence him, to whom we are indebted for 
these aids to human progress and comfort. The discovery 
of the gold mines of California, whereby a great and flour- 
ishing State has suddenly sprung into being with its churches 
and Protestant religion, in no degree loses its importance or 
value if the discoverer was animated with any other motives 
than patriotism, philanthropy, or religion ; or because the 
discovery was accidental. 

We sometimes celebrate the act, or the event ; at otlier 
times we honor the actor by whose agency it was evolved. 
Sometimes, the skill, tlie arduous labor, energy, and per- 
severance of the man ; at other times we immortalize his 
work. Wo may commemorate the noble enterprise of the 
Bristol projectors of the Pophani Colony in its first devel- 
opment, in its landing at llunnewcirs Point, to take pos 
session, and occupy tlic territory in the name of King James ; 
or the resolution, bravery, and self-sacrifice of that noble 



60 

campany, in hazarding the perils and deprivations v/hich 
must come to tlieni from the grand experiment ; or we can 
commemorate the dedication on that day of this New Eng- 
land to the cause of civilization and religion. And in tliis 
view, in the pages of undisputed history, stand out these 
great facts, which shouhl come home with power to every 
Christian heart. Jlere was offered the lirst Christian prayer 
in our own language, that ever l)roke forth from human 
lips on the shores of New England. Here on the 19th day 
of August, ir)07, the first English minister of the Gospel of 
Peace, jiroclaimed the great truths of (Jhristian salvation. 
Here, on that day, went out over tiie dead silence of the 
wilderness from a hundred Saxon voices, the first P^nglisli 
hymn of adoration and praise to the great Creator, the Ciod 
of the Universe ; and here was erected the first Christian 
church, the emblem of all New England's power and great^ 
uess. Here also was the final resting-place of the first of 
her "illustrious dead." "A nohle name," says Thornton, 
'■•lays sleeping here." 

One would think that the mementoes which cluster around 
this spot, would l»e sullicient to attract thither every man who 
has any reverence for what('ver is gi-and and worthy in the 
p;ist, or any sym}v.ithies for those noble institutions v.'hich 
have made us a great nation, rich iii all material resources, 
and invested with a moral power adc(juate to all the exi- 
uencies of our national life. 



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